ok, ill preface this with 'ive never seen a TBS frame' and am just spitballing an idea based on a quick google image search...

the TBS has an upper and lower deck -in blue- with 2 vertical struts/standoffs - in red- (?? dimensions anyone?). forward to the two stuts is the lower plate (again, dimension?) on which you solid mount your gopro. there is no vibration isolation.

so using these few existing components, i spent 2 mins to come up with this idea for a possible mounting configuration...

use the two rear struts to support a rear plate onto which x2 vibration isolators in black can be mounted (horizontally). drill x2 9mm holes at the front of the lower plate, and mount a further 2 vibration isolators (vertical) there.

conjure up some sort of 90deg angle piece -in white- between the two to which the roll-motor mount is integrated... and bam, isolated forward facing mount for theTBS ??

would naturally be more blended, integrated, and loadoptimised, but you get the idea...

Images

awesome that youve picked it up and taken it another direction
also jealous youve got a hero 3 to play with

Lupus - sent you a PM re: updating parts if required

EDIT: you 'front mounted' guys... what frame specifically? and what potential mounting positions/holes/options are there to accommodate a mount for the roll motor. or if thinking non 'frame specific', what kind of 'generic' forward pointing mount would be desirable?

For a frame the Dialfonzo fpv quad, his blackwidow quad and blackwidow hex.

EDIT: you 'front mounted' guys... what frame specifically? and what potential mounting positions/holes/options are there to accommodate a mount for the roll motor. or if thinking non 'frame specific', what kind of 'generic' forward pointing mount would be desirable?

I have no capability to make one of these myself but was considering all options to mount a gimbal to the front of my Discovery. The drawing here might work but it will require some adjustments for vibration isolation mounting and balance I think. I think all that weight pushed forward will at least require an extension to move the battery farther back on the Disco. In looking at the photos of the Spidex, it seems that they have an excellent layout design... building on the Disco and Scarab styles somewhat. (I have no way of knowing if their vibration isolation works well or if the frame is well made.)

Now I can see why some would like to build a project from scratch. But the Spidex is very inexpensive and seems like a good solution for me to get going quickly... assuming I don't have to wait too long for it. I am going on faith from their single test video that this will work well.

What I did is I ordered a Spidex gimbal ($225) that is designed to be mounted on the front of their Spidex V2 frame. I also ordered the entire frame for another $75. I may try to adapt the Spidex gimbal to my Discovery frame, move the mounting system from the Spidex to the Disco, or switch over to the Spidex frame entirely. I can't say until I have it but maybe this photo will give people the idea of various directions to go with their home made projects. I'm certainly open to suggestions for mounting too.

Considering the frame is only $75 it is surely a reasonably priced solution rather than spending a lot of time and effort trying to mount this gimbal onto my Disco. So I may have a Disco frame available for cheap soon.

I have no capability to make one of these myself but was considering all options to mount a gimbal to the front of my Discovery. The drawing here might work but it will require some adjustments for vibration isolation mounting and balance I think. I think all that weight pushed forward will at least require an extension to move the battery farther back on the Disco.

Now I can see why some would like to build a project from scratch. But the Spidex is very inexpensive and seems like a good solution for me to get going quickly... assuming I don't have to wait too long for it. I am going on faith from their single test video that this will work well.

What I did is I ordered a Spidex gimbal ($225) that is designed to be mounted on the front of their Spidex V2 frame. I also ordered the entire frame for another $75. I may try to adapt the Spidex gimbal to my Discovery frame, move the mounting system from the Spidex to the Disco, or switch over to the Spidex frame entirely. I can't say until I have it but maybe this photo will give people the idea of various directions to go with their home made projects. I'm certainly open to suggestions for mounting too.

Yesterday, they accepted orders for 15 units to be "delivered" with in 2 weeks. But I don't think that is guaranteed because they are assuming all goes well from prototype to limited production. But since nothing else was available, I figured, why not.

I looked on their website and see they are accepting new orders but now say it is "back ordered for 2-3 weeks." I really have no idea and bought it very impulsively yesterday once I saw the price and that they were taking pre-orders... since it looks exactly like what I wanted. Other gimbals, which also are not available, would have forced me to add the weight of landing gear to the Disco and that LG might have been more expensive than this entire frame.

Best I can tell this comes with commonly available motors and the Martinez Arduino open source board. (I haven't looked into the software for it yet.) I really like the way the camera mounts to it and it is protected in a frame behind a glass or plastic "lens protector" of some sort. (Information is pretty scarce at this time.) It looks like it has room on the side for a video out FPV cable.

Here is the link to the gimbal/frame package for $300.98 or 230 Euros.

I have a question for you guys who are making these. Since people worry about the mechanical resistance of the cables is there any way that ribbon connectors - the kind used connecting the heads of inkjet printers and scanners, can be used on these? Or is the current demand too high?

Yesterday, they accepted orders for 15 units to be "delivered" with in 2 weeks. But I don't think that is guaranteed because they are assuming all goes well from prototype to limited production. But since nothing else was available, I figured, why not.

I looked on their website and see they are accepting new orders but now say it is "back ordered for 2-3 weeks." I really have no idea and bought it very impulsively yesterday once I saw the price and that they were taking pre-orders... since it looks exactly like what I wanted. Other gimbals, which also are not available, would have forced me to add the weight of landing gear to the Disco and that LG might have been more expensive than this entire frame.

Best I can tell this comes with commonly available motors and the Martinez Arduino open source board. (I haven't looked into the software for it yet.) I really like the way the camera mounts to it and it is protected in a frame behind a glass or plastic "lens protector" of some sort. (Information is pretty scarce at this time.) It looks like it has room on the side for a video out FPV cable.

Here is the link to the gimbal/frame package for $300.98 or 230 Euros.

I have a question for you guys who are making these. Since people worry about the mechanical resistance of the cables is there any way that ribbon connectors - the kind used connecting the heads of inkjet printers and scanners, can be used on these? Or is the current demand too high?

I have been looking at this frame for a while. But I would like a folding one. I will end up getting one from Dialfonzo. Eric has a fpv quad and a Blackwidow. quad and hex.

I was also one of the lucky 15. I don't thing it is risky. Judging by their expertise, both flying skills and designing skills, I can hardly think that they would release something that is not 100%. Al depends on the controller I guess, which is still a mistery to me. the gimbal itself looks pretty straightforward.

as said, it'll come down to the controller. i stumped up the cash for the alex mos one becuase we know it works, and the firmware seems to put out consistently better results than the open source (martinez) version, but i reckon itll level out pretty quickly aftr a few updates.

i just like designing stuff, and if someone can use this design, and better still, if it can go 'open source' and be improved, extended across platforms, or whatever, great!

(ps - i have a v2 spidex myself ... might make a mount for this to fit! haha!)

I thought this might work for the H3, probably needs some more tweaking but the USB cable would be reachable like this and the sensor should be centered with the two axis. I figured the plate on the front of the camera could have a little notch in the bottom for a rubber-band to hold the camera securely.

Sorry, only have sketchup to play with so the results look a little rough.

whoever just *bought* x4 parts through shapeways, i suggest you cancel your order, as i just uploaded an error, and need to upload it all again (revision 1.08... ill let you know, ill update it here) - you were too quick!

(ps - i dont make anything from the shapeways print orders!)

regarding scaling : it did something funky in conversion to .stl format...

its a metric design, but it appears to have go through an 'inches' conversion somewhere, and need to be converted back to 'milimeters'. so a factor of 25.4 should be in there, give or take a few zeros